Note 18 — Chapter VIII · Welsh Cave Legends

Before leaving Snowdon I may mention a cave near a small stream not far from Ỻyn Gwynain, about a mile and a half above Dinas Emrys. In the Ỻwyd letter (printed in the Cambrian Journal for 1859, pp. 142, 209), on which I have already drawn, it is called Ogo’r Gwr Blew, ‘the Hairy Man’s Cave’; and the story relates how the Gwr Blew who lived in it was fatally wounded by a woman who happened to be at home, alone, in one of the nearest farm houses when the Gwr Blew came to plunder it. Its sole interest here is that a later version18 identifies the Hairy Man with Owen Lawgoch, after modifying the former’s designation y Gwr Blew, which literally meant ‘the Hair Man,’ into y Gwr Blewog, ‘the Hairy Man.’ This doubtful instance of the presence of Owen Lawgoch in the folklore of North Wales seems to stand alone.